May Reading.

[RedEyedGhost]

...a christian Merlin...

:stunned: :stunned:

um... what????? How does that work exactly?

[kcf]

I really wish the scar didn't fall apart in the end the way it does.

I didn't feel that it fell apart at all.

[Astra]

I just finished The Dark Tower VII.

I don't know what everybody expected from the series but I am satisfied with the ending. Completely unpredictable and different from any other book i have ever read. Sure some people would like a more traditional finish but I think this one was very good. As King said, it could not be different. The journey was very good as well.

I am going to re-read a few last chapters of The Dark Tower then I start to re-read The Master and Margarita by M. Bulgakov. I read it twice long time ago. I think the last time was when I was 19. I believe I was a bit too young to understand all of it. So, I am going to try again.

[Ser Barry]

Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos

A story revolving around a black family in Washington before and after the murder of MLK. GP manages to transport you to a world you will never be part of and keeps you there via tight plotting, cracking dialogue and masterful creation of tension. Highly recommended.

[zach]

I didn't feel that it fell apart at all.

fair enough. I thought the ending was rather cheap and didn't really jive with the rest of the book at all.

and master and margarita is spectacular.

[Bellis]

fair enough. I thought the ending was rather cheap and didn't really jive with the rest of the book at all.

and master and margarita is spectacular.

I thought the ending didn't really jive with what the reader expected or wanted, but was in keeping with what the author wanted to say and his style and theme. anyway, ymmv.

[zach]

that does seem to be mieville's MO.

for what it's worth, I thought that style of conclusion worked best in iron council.

[kcf]

I thought the ending didn't really jive with what the reader expected or wanted, but was in keeping with what the author wanted to say and his style and theme. anyway, ymmv.

This is a good way of putting it - though I didn't have a problem with The Scar, but I did find the ending in PSS to be better, though the writing in The Scar was overall better.

I haven't read Iron Council yet...someday

[Kat]

I thought the ending didn't really jive with what the reader expected or wanted, but was in keeping with what the author wanted to say and his style and theme. anyway, ymmv.

Yes this.

I also thought your namesake character was an engaging and sympathetic protagonist when I read the book earlier this month. I went to check out reviews on Amazon afterward and the first review I saw basically said, "This is an interesting book despite the protagonist, who is selfish, cold and extremely unlikeable."

Now I wonder what that says about me for appreciating her.

[lessthanluke]

Argh - I started reading this book and decided about a week ago that I couldn't go on with it. The initial premise was interesting and I'm sure it's well written etc. etc. but I just can't bear to read any more of it. The elite snobbish world is just so alien to my own experience (and I couldn't buy the views on ancient Greek society either), but above all I can't stand a narrator who is so insecure in himself that he (feels he) has to lie in order to get in with the set of people he wants to hang around with. I don't want to be spending chapters and chapters waiting for him to be 'found out' in his self-inflicted embarassment. Makes me cringe. I can't respect him and dislike him for not being genuine, so I want to get out of his head, now. This is just a personal thing though; I don't mean this is a bad book, just not my sort of book.

I'm currently reading Bakker's The Thousandthfold Thought, which is full of elites and liars with rather more purpose, instead.

I just finished The Secret History and I thought it was ok. I read through it pretty quickly and I too thought the premise was interesting. I don't really know much about the classics so those parts bored me a bit and I think this book could have also been A LOT shorter and by towards the end I was skimming just to finish it because it was so slow, some of the words just added nothing to the story. The arrogance of the characters also did my head in a bit, but all in all I think it was just OK.

Haha I just waffled a lot

[pat5150]

Just finished Richard Morgan's excellent Black Man/Thirteen.

Morgan's writing style and his fine eye for details make the narrative leap off the pages. The author truly knows how to make the story come alive, and I found the imagery quite compelling.

The worldbuilding is interesting, though Morgan doesn't delve too much on how it all came to pass. The USA have imploded and the country has split into three separate States: the Pacific Rim, the North Atlantic Union, and the Republic, also known as Jesusland. China is now a superpower and the rest of the world appears hard-pressed to keep up with them. It is a fascinating backdrop, to be sure, and it's too bad Richard Morgan didn't spend a bit more time explaining how it all unfolded.

The characterizations are well-done, the dialogues gritty. The author knows how to keep the readers interested by allowing us to learn more about the characters by increments. The Carl Marsalis/Sevgi Ertekin tandem provides a nice balance between the Thirteen and the COLIN agent. The supporting cast is comprised of a good bunch of characters, including the Norton brothers and Carmen Ren.

The pace is great -- Black Man/Thirteen is a veritable page-turner! However, the storytelling is at times a bit uneven. Nothing that really takes anything away from the novel, mind you. But Morgan sometimes takes the "easy" route, and Marsalis' hunches prove to be on target, though they're coming from way out of left field. With such a absorbing and convoluted plot, I felt decidedly short-changed when that happened.

My only true complaint in what is an otherwise nearly flawless work of science fiction lies in Morgan's depiction of Jesusland. I am well aware that the southern States of the USA are a land of contradictions, not easily understood by outsiders. But to portray the majority of their inhabitants as God-fearing, Bible-waving, racist dumbasses is quite a stretch, in my humble opinion. As I mentioned, Richard Morgan's backdrop is an interesting extrapolation of a possible future for the United States of America. Yet his depiction of the Republic goes a bit too far -- as if there's not a single soul in those States with a single shred of common sense and judgement. I mean, when it comes to human rights, they have as much moral celirity as countries like Libya. Again, that's pushing the envelope a bit too far. Honestly, there is a lot more to those States and their citizens, and the differences between the north and the south are a bit more complex than that. Hence, although most people likely will not even notice this (it doesn't particularly have much of an impact on the tale), it made me grit my teeth on more than one occasion. I guess I'm just tired of what has become a somewhat Western European misconception about the southern States, namely that religious fundamentalism is the norm everywhere. Heck, not everyone born there is a traditionalist right-wing inbred hillbilly fuckwit! I figure it irked me to such an extent because everything else is so well-crafted that it appears that Morgan let his Leftist side take over for just that facet of his creation. As I said, this doesn't affect the overall quality of this novel, but it left something to be desired.

Black Man/Thirteen is a high-octane, action-packed and violent book. It is also an intelligent and thought-provoking thriller, one that will even satisfy readers from outside the genre.

Check the blog for the full review!

Patrick

[RedEyedGhost]

Just finished Richard Morgan's excellent Black Man/Thirteen.

...

Check the blog for the full review!

Patrick

Dang, Pat, that's the longest partial review I've ever seen!

I also recently finished a Richard Morgan novel - Altered Carbon. And I really enjoyed it. Good suspension, nice twists and turns, fairly even pacing. Plus the science was cool, too.

I liked it so much that I probably would have started Black Man if my copy had shown up, unfortunately I'm still waiting for it...

Instead I started Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, right now I've been tearing through it, and am over half way through. It's very, very good so far. I do like Sanderson's prose (or lack of prose, as I'm sure some would describe it), it's simplistic, but not dumbed down. I think it's just smooth and readable. Now I'm off to go read some more

[lokisnow]

my reading has plummeted because I bought Final Fantasy VI for the GBA/DS and I'm enjoying being all nostalgic for now.

[Calibandar]

Pat, I was surprised to see ( by the ratings) that you actually liked Thirteen quite a bit more than Red Seas under Red Skies. How come?

[pat5150]

Pat, I was surprised to see ( by the ratings) that you actually liked Thirteen quite a bit more than Red Seas under Red Skies. How come?

More depth, more action, the noir setting and all -- it's a better all-around novel. Red Seas under Red Skies is a very good and entertaining book, but Black Man/Thirteen a superior work.

Patrick

[Mr. X]

I just finished Brasyl by Ian McDonald, who is becoming one of my favorite authors. Not as massive a work as River of Gods, but generally a tightly written one. Recommended.

[Deornoth]

I just finished reading 'The Stormcaller' by Tom Lloyd. A good book (I thought) that had the misfortune to be published at the same time as 'Lies of Locke Lamora' and 'The Blade Itself' so didn't get the attention that it deserved... I've reviewed it Here and I've got two copies to give away if anyone fancies it

I'm now going to be reading 'Danse Macabre' by Laurell K. Hamilton, never read one of her books before so it will be interesting to see what it is like...

[sologdin]

read weatherford's genghis kahn and the making of the modern world. the eponymous thesis overreaches somewhat, but it is fascinating, despite some of the factual errors it makes when the author strays out of his field of training (anthropology). a quick and generally rewarding read.

i read it out of order in relation to my trunkload of new books, though--currently a quarter through ostrogorsky's history of the byzantine state. it's academic, as opposed to popular, and is awesome so far. the thesis of the first two parts deals with the transformation: the last fully roman emperor of the east is justinian, and the first fully byzantine emperor is heraclius. very cool so far.

next is finkel's osman's dream, re: the origin, rise, and decline of the ottoman turkish empire (which looks like a popular history, just glancing at it). then it's on to the juicer, unabridged gibbon, decline and fall of the roman empire, which i've only read in abridgement.

[zach]

I'm currently trying to read eco's "the mysterious flame of queen loana" and it just isn't grabbing me so far. I find it's generally tough to get into eco's books in the beginning because he throws so much at you all the time, but this is taking more work than most. we'll see if I stick with it.

I'm also occasionally making my way through russell jacoby's "the end of utopia" and louis menand's "the metaphysical club."

[Caligula_K]

Started off the month with Antony Everitt's Augustus. Probably the best introduction to Augustus' life I've read so far, though there are some problems- namely, Everitt will make broad conclusive statements sometimes on the basis of one source that may not be reliable (that Marc Antony knew about the assassination plot of the Ides, for example). Everitt also skims over the pre-Mutina politics. But still, his handling of Augustus' reforms as princeps are very well done, and I reccomend reading it- though it should be followed up by Ronald Syme's The Roman Revolution.

After that, re-read McCullough's The Grass Crown, better than I remembered... Even if Marius does go a bit too over the top too quickly at the end. Now onto Fortune's Favourites, where her Caesar boner truly begins.

Then read Reaper's Gale, which is now probably tied as my second favourite Malazan entry with Deadhouse Gates, after Midnight Tides. A great exciting read with lots of twists and turns, but there's no question that a good 100-150 pages could have been cut out of this one, as with nearly all Erikson books. I also at a certain point started to get sick of all Bonehunters POVs (minus a few, like Fiddler, Keneb and Beak) because they all sound the exact same- a point thats grated me since Memories of Ice. Essentially, all the weaknesses in the book are weaknesses found in other Erikson books, but the action, setup and payoff are done so well that I'll forgive it easier.

The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson. Sci fi elements in it are boring, but the characters are very well done and interesting- particularly Angus Thermopyle. It also works very well as a subversion of the traditional "hero saves maiden in distress from villain" story. It was my first Donaldson, I liked it, and I'll be picking up the next one and Thomas Covenant eventually (the Thomas Covenant premise really intrigues me and looks to be the first well executed "person from our world comes into fantasy world" I have ever read).

Egil's Saga. Oh yeah. Everyone who loves bloodthirsty and revengful Vikings who after slaughtering their enemies write poetry about it will love this saga.

Plan to read Rome and Jerusalem by Martin Goodman and Josephus' The Jewish War in preperation for my trip to the holy land in a few days.